Today I am celebrating my inner Mnyuh. As Richard Schwartz might say it is part of me, wishing me well. She or he is relentlessly negative, peevish and mean. She can find something nasty to say about anyone or anything. I have not respected or valued her sufficiently, and this may have distorted her.
It’s too hot. The tube will be dirty, smelly and crowded. That 19th century woman artist the Tate is showcasing will be derivative and dull as the Guardian said.
Etc. Give Mnyuh her head, and see where she pulls.
I wrote that yesterday morning, and by the evening I had moved on. Mnyuh is a childish response to not being allowed to refuse stuff. I will sulk and be disagreeable and cause unpleasantness for others because I can’t just say no. Mnyuh seeks out some part of an experience to object to, so it will have an argument against the whole. The tube was crowded at times. In the evening, another trans woman noticed and smiled at me, and I smiled back and noticed. I like Annie-Louisa Swynnerton, so I am sharing her pictures. Laura Knight wrote, “Any woman reaching the heights in the fine arts had been almost unknown until Mrs Swynnerton came and broke down the barriers of prejudice”. Of course she means in England, but still. A huge painting of a child on a pony, painted like a heroic Equestrian, is beautiful. The girl must have loved it.
Not knowing my “No”, being unable to refuse what I do not like nor embrace it with Serenity, limits my capacity to know desire. In the 90s my life was a slog. I wrote in my diary going to my traineeship, “I cannot endure this job. I must enjoy it,” but I hated it and was glad to leave in disgrace though I did not know what else I would do. Then at the CAB I saw an older welfare rights worker for the council, and thought, that is my fate, this just goes on. Well, life does.
“Accepting the fact of our death, we are enabled to live more fully.” I checked the quote: it’s actually “the fact of death, we are freed”. All death, all loss, all endings, all change. Humans notice loss more than gain. If I can accept a loss I can move on from it, rather than fruitlessly craving what I never really possessed.
She asked, “What do you want?” I had no idea. I want to survive. I want to be safe. I want to hide away and not be noticed. These are fearful. So “No” becomes resistance to anything new. If, as I believed in my heart, I was worthless, nothing could be good to me.
There is my ordinary speaking voice, coming from ego, what I imagine to be acceptable, sensible, rational, and my true self which talks in a softer voice, which Richard Schwartz calls simply “Self” as “false Self” is an impossibility. Self was crushed, and has been manifesting. Self loves beauty, and challenge. I want to play the piano, though the teenager playing Chopin so brilliantly at St Pancras makes my playing seem plodding to me. I wanted to swim to the Palace Pier and back, a round trip of about a kilometre, despite the swell. I felt triumph going under it, and dismay at the thought of swimming back.
I want to challenge myself, and overcome.
My no is reflexive. I started this blog by rejecting it, wanting Positivity, engagement, delight. I found it stayed with me, then was resurgent. I am uncoiling slowly, like a cautious pangolin. Having my No as my shield to use as I please, valuing myself and my right, I begin to find my Yes. Or, if I can give a clear and cheerful No, I am able to see the boundary I need, and enforce it. If my Mnyuh resurfaces, I will notice and value it: it shows me I am fearful of enforcing a boundary I desire, and that is good to know.